


Stuck With You

by Kimcat



Series: Phic Phight 2019 [12]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Phic Phight 2019, Team Ghost, Vlad is dealing with his feels, hint. Of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 19:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18666700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimcat/pseuds/Kimcat
Summary: Jack and Vlad are locked in a room together, tensions run high as they realize they both made mistakes along the way.





	Stuck With You

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed due to trying to get it out before the deadline on the Phic Phight Please let me know if you notice any errors!

**Original prompt by: blueoatmeal** \- Locked Room -- Vlad and Jack have an actual conversation that lasts more than five minutes.

**Character list** : Jack, Vlad, Maddie

**Categories:** Bonding, feel the feels, angsty fluff

**Warnings:** N.A

**Word count:** 3,262 

 

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“Ah, simply marvellous my dear. You truly are a treasure to the field.”

“Yes? I suppose? It’s really nothing..”

“Now, now Maddie don't sell yourself short! Your are a genius!”

“Vlad…” Maddie blinked taking a step away from the silver haired man hoping to put more distance between them. “Really it's just a purifier-“ A creak sounded above them. “Oh Jack Hun! I'm downstairs!”

The large man bounded down into the lab with a bright smile. “Hey baby I – Vladdie my man! How’ve you been?” Jack boomed.

Maddie felt herself sag in relief seeing her husband. “Perfect timing! Vlad just dropped by and wanted to see some of our new inventions! Jack would you-“

“Of course sweetheart!”

“That’s wonderful Jack. If you need me I’ll just be out at the store grabbing some groceries” Maddie said with a slightly forced smile before bolting out of the lab.

“V-Man I’m glad to see ya!” Jack grinned happily at his friend.

“Oh yes, me too you buffoon…. But I must actually be on my way something has come up.” Vlad said in his usual smooth voice.

“Nonsense Maddie said you just got here and you wouldn’t have dropped by if you didn’t have the time, besides I haven’t even shown you our inventions yet!”

“No I don’t want to zap away what limited brain power you have.” Vlad insisted. “Although it may be unfortunate if we were to say… Have an accident with just the two of us?”

“Heh! Good one! No worries V-man I’ve always got the brain space for you! Lookie here! This is our Ghost Glue Gun! Wanna guess what it does?”

“Not really, no.”

“That’s right it sticks ghosts to stuff! Watch.” With that Jack flipped the switch on the device which set up itself into a mini Turret and instantly fired a gunk shot at Vlad.

The billionaire shielded his face with his arm covering his suit jacket in the goop. “Oh don’t worry that’ll wash right out!” Jack laughed turning off his device and moving closer to his friend. “Unless you’re a ghost that is! Heh, heh!”

Jack moved to elbow the man in the side, in a kidding manner, only for Vlad to move and end up with his arm suddenly stuck to Jack’s.

When Jack went to go to the sink Vlad found himself pulled along for the ride. “Oh butter biscuits…”

“Huh, Guess the glue worked a little too well, eh Vladd-y?” Jack laughed. “Maybe you can just take of your jacket?”

Vlad sighed in defeat and moved to do just that only to find the fabrics he was wearing suddenly stuck onto his skin. “It’s melted my clothes you barbarian.”

“Huh? Weird. That shouldn’t happen on humans… no worries V man! I’ve got the solvent around here somewhere.”

“I do hope so for both our sakes….”

Jack shuffled about the lab looking for his little spray bottle of solvent that Maddie made sure to make. She was always so smart and knew exactly what he needed! Upon going through all the shelves in the lab however, Jack still couldn’t find it. Even with Vladdy looking.

“Oh! Now I remember! I was experimenting yesterday and needed the solvent! It’s upstairs in the kitchen!”

“Lovely. Well then the sooner I’m free of you the better…”

The pair awkwardly made their way up the stairs, which was made more difficult with Jack’s large frame basically taking up the entire stairwell, and crushing Vlad’s arm as he went. When they reached the door Jack went for the handle, and gave it a turn.

“Oopsie”

“What now?” Vlad groaned out, he almost let his eyes glow in his frustration.

“Doors jammed.” Jack said simply. “Sometimes it does that gets all weird on the hinge and stuff… Well guess were stuck together until Mads or one of the kids get home!”

“You can’t be serious…”

“Eh. What can you do.” Jack simply shrugged before pushing his way back down the stairs, much to the halfa’s disdain. Well he knew exactly what he could do…. Vlad tried to phase away from the larger man only to feel a sharp electric zap in his arm where the gunk was stuck to him.

Vlad ground out again. Of course the buffoon made it anti phase as well.

“No worries Vladdie we’ll have plenty of entertainment down here! It’ll be just like back in college when we would stay up all night and work on projects together!” Jack exclaimed happily.

“Oh joyous of joys…” Vlad said sarcastically.

“Awe don’t worry Vladdie! It’ll be fun.”

“Fun with you? Don’t make me laugh!” Vlad snapped.

“What you um, don’t wanna help me build something like the good ol’ days?” Jack asked clearly confused and disheartened. “We have some board games down here if you’d rather-“

“No you imbecile! Don’t you get it I want nothing to do with you!” Vlad finally snapped. Being in Jack’s infernal jovialness simply irritated him beyond belief.

“But V- Man I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t you simpleton! You don’t ever understand anything!”

Jack turned, as best he could given he was still tethered to Vlad’s side, trying to face the silver haired man. “I’m thinking there’s something you need to get off your chest?”

“Oh? There’s a bit of hilarity! You Jack Fenton thinking about something? Perish the thought!” Jack frowned unsure what to make of his friends sudden hostility. “No seriously, I think about you perishing a lot.”

There was a beat of silence before Jack forced out a laugh. “Oh V-man you really had me going there!”

“Going? Where can we go you idiot? I can’t seem to go anywhere with this goo you’ve shot me with!” Vlad growled out his eyes flickering red for a second.

Jack wasn’t the most observant man. He fully was aware of this fact. He did however notice that. And so the ecto-biologist said the first thing that came to his mind.

“Vladdie?” Jack’s eyes narrowed as he examined his friend. “Fight it V-Man! That evil entity won’t win! Not with Jack here!”

“Now what are you going on abo-“ Vlad started only to have to awkwardly dodge back as Jack pulled out an ecto gun and fired. “What are you doing you idiot?!”

“I saw your eyes change ghost! You can’t fool me, now let Vlad go!”

“Really now. You think I’m being controlled?” Vlad sneered slapping the gun out of his face.

“Of course! That’s why the glue worked so well on you!”

Instead of the what ever reaction Jack thought he was going to get, laughter was not one of them. “I’m not being controlled by a ghost you idiot! I am the ghost!” Vlad roared his eyes bleeding fully red a moment before melting back to his usual steely blue.

The silver haired man shook his head before scowling at Jack. “Just what exactly does this stuff do?” He seethed out.

“Oh! Glues ghosts to the spot and it is supposed to make them expend energy and wear them out faster by stripping away at their sense of self preservation.” Jack frowned. “It’s supposed to make it so they keep struggling instead of trying to conserve energy.”

“Of course! Because why not!” Vlad hissed out.

“What did you mean, you are a ghost… When- Are- … Is that why you’ve been off lately?” Jack asked surprisingly softly.

“Lately? LATELY? How on earth would you know the difference!? You abandoned me for almost a full twenty years!” Vlad seethed eyes glowing bright as his emotions ran raw.

“When did this-“

“In college you buffoon! That proto portal, that YOU screwed up the formula for, and gave me that dreaded Ecto-Acne.”

“Vladdie I had no idea… I-“

“Don’t… Don’t you dare.” Vlad growled out lowly.

Jack watched his friend as he stewed in anger silently, and took the time to look at him. Really look at him. He really looked as though he hadn’t aged much since college, apart form going completely grey. Vlad barely had any lines on his face, no crinkling by his eyes from years of smiles, yet no indents around his mouth from years of frowning.

His eyes flashed rapidly between their usual steel blue to a ghostly ruby, in rapid succession. Almost every blink changed their colour. Jack was suddenly happy he put the power dampening agent in the glue as well. Who knows what Vladdy could have done if his inhibitions were taken away…

Jack wanted to believe that his friend wouldn’t hurt him, however the ghost of his friend might…

“We tried to visit you, in the hospital. When it happened you know…” Jack said softly, suddenly plopping down onto the floor and pulling Vlad down into a sitting position with him.

“I don’t believe you.” Came the hissed response.

“You were quarantined. We even bought our own HVAC suits and everything, but they wouldn’t let us see you.”

Vlad sneered over at the large man searching for any tell tale signs of a fib. Navy blue eyes seemed transfixed upon a burn mark in the steel floor, a deep frown etched into Jack’s large face.

He was telling the truth about that it seemed…

“You stole Maddie from me! I was supposed to win her heart!” Vlad growled.

“She’s not some kind of prize V-man.” Jack said simply. “She liked you sure, but as a friend.”

“Your lying!” Vlad thundered in response. “She was supposed to-“

“She did love you. She loved you like a brother.” Jack said calmly, deep blue eyes flashing to raging red, silencing the halfa’s protests.

“A-A brother?” Vlad blinked suddenly his eyes were steely blue once again.

“We kept trying to visit you, you know. For a long while. We kept pushing back our official wedding hoping you’d recover. Even with Jazzy, we still pushed it back… We were common law at that point…” Jack glanced away staring up at the ceiling laying his head back against the counter. “Then they moved you, and didn’t tell us where, and the only thing we could get out of them was something about a hospice… We thought you were dying Vlad.”

“You…” Vlad tried. He wanted to be mad, but he couldn’t. He wanted to believe Jack was lying, but couldn’t see any sign to indicate that he was. That frustrated him more.

“When we did get officially married, I didn’t have a best man. Because no one could replace you Vladdy. We had Danny shortly after, and moved here to Amity. When we didn’t hear anything from you, we thought… We’d thought you’d passed.” Jacks voice was thick with emotion.

“You really did that?” Vlad asked bending a knee into his chest as he looked to Jack.

The large man nodded, but never dropped his gaze from the ceiling. “When we suddenly saw you on a magazine cover we were so happy to see you alive and doing so well for yourself!” Jack chuckled mirthlessly. “We tried to call you, contact you in some way. Secretary’s never passed along our messages and I’m guessing who ever sorted your letters figured anything we sent was just some sort of fan mail.”

“You did all that?” Vlad asked hating himself for how weak his voice sounded.

“Yea. Eventually we figured you were just too busy to bother with us, and left you be. Ya know, when I got that invitations to the reunion I was so happy to finally hear from you again.” Jack smirked finally turning his head to look at Vlad. “I knew we wouldn’t be able to pick up like nothing had happened, but I had hoped… Maybe… Maybe If I treated ya like how I did in college it would be easier to reconnect, rather than act like awkward strangers.” He huffed out a breathless laugh.

“I suppose though If what ya say is true, you did sorta die at some point along the way…” Jack shook his head, eyes watering before staring back up at the ceiling.

Vlad stared at Jack long and hard. Taking in the crows feet that had started to gather tears, and every wrinkle the other man had, watching, almost wishing, for him to turn and give him a ‘got ya’ moment so he could stop being confused and go back to hating him again.

“We wanted you to be a part of our lives, we wanted more then anything for you to be a part of our kids lives… We didn’t want things to turn out the way they did, but once we had Jazz….” Jack trailed off. “Ah, sorry V-man, I’m rambling…”

“Jack. Truly, do you know why I became a billionaire?” Vlad asked, ripping his eyes away from Jacks face as the other man shook his head ‘no’ to look up at the ceiling himself. “I wanted to rub it in your face for abandoning me for all those years in the hospital…” Vlad sighed deeply.

Jack huffed out a voiceless laugh. “That’s fair. I’d a been mad too from that perspective…”

The men stayed silent for a moment both staring upwards blankly. Only the sound of the other’s breaths occasionally breaking up the monotonous hums from the lab.

“Ya know…” Jack’s voice suddenly cut through the silence of the lab like a serrated blade. Vlad let his head loll to the side to look at Jack. “If anyone is to blame its those doctors for not telling you about us trying to visit…”

Vlad blinked a few times at that revelation. “You may be right big guy.” Vlad smiled, a real truly happy smile for the first time in a long time,

“Heh it’s been a while since ya called me that.” Jack smiled as he too let his head fall to stare back at Vlad.

“I suppose it has…” Vlad sighed deeply. “I spent so long, so, so long, being angry. And not just that, but being angry at the wrong people.” Vlad shook his head sadly letting loose a saddened chuckle. “I was angry and so lonely because I thought I had been abandoned, and it seems I was the one isolating myself.”

A half smile came to Vlad’s lips as he used his free hand to run his fingers through his hair. He started chuckling a bit, before letting loose a full on unhinged laughter, which quickly changed into sobbing.

Jack watched his friend unsure what to really do for him, instead opting to allow him to calm down.

“Daniel is correct…. I am a fool…”He let loose one last broken laugh before smacking his head harshly against the cabinet.

“Naw, not a fool V-Man. Just a man who thought he lost his friends. It’d drive the best of us crazy.” Jack offered. “Or ghost I suppose….”

“Half true big guy…” Vlad sent a teasing smirk to Jack who raised a brow. “I’m merely a man who acquired the powers of a ghost.”

“Ya don’t say? Heh, I knew it was possible! Mads didn’t think so!” Jack laughed in delight. “Suppose that’s why I can still hear you breathing for more then simply taking in air when you talk…”

“Indeed…” He confirmed. “So now what? We’re still stuck here until someone comes back…”

“Well I don’t know about you but I would still love to be your partner for a ghost related project.” Jack said with a sly smirk.

“You know what Big guy? That sounds wonderful.”

It was a full two hours before Maddie returned with armfuls of groceries. As she finished up putting them away she suddenly heard a loud boom from the lab followed by laughter.

“Whoops!” Jacks voice travelled up through the walls, followed by more laughter. Vlad’s laughter. Maddie raised a brow hearing it. It sounded lighter somehow more airy, like the way he used to in college before his accident.

Cautiously Maddie made her way to the lab door and jostled the knob, frowning as she realized the pin had gotten stuck again. Once she did get the door opened she made sure to put the clasp in place to hold it, to make sure it wouldn’t lock or seize up again.

“Jack?” Maddie called through the uproarious laughter.

“Maddie! Welcome back!” Vlad called a bright grin on his face as a large foaming volcano of green goop was erupting in front of him.

Jack grinned sheepishly seeing his wife give them an appraising eye. “Um Hun? Remember that solvent for the Ghost Glue Gun that you had us make case we got something stuck that shouldn’t be stuck?”

Maddie sighed instantly picking up on the ask. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared up the stairs only to return a few moments later with the spritzer bottle. “Where?” She asked sharply.

Vlad and Jack shuffled out from their work space and held out their arms. Maddie simply frowned and applied the solvent. The glue melted away instantly leaving a large hole in both Vlad’s suit and Jacks hazmat.

“It seems you two are getting along well.” Maddie commented suspiciously.

“Of course!” Jack boomed placing his arm around Vlad’s shoulders giving him a side hug that Vlad, for once, didn’t seem to be trying to struggle away from, and instead held a shit eating grin in place.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Vlad agreed with a slight chuckle. “Although now that I am free of you big guy I must admit I should be on my way.”

“Awe.” Jack pouted. “Well I had a blast Vladdy So don’t be a stranger and come on back any time!” Jack boomed leaning into Vlad and almost toppling the pair over, earning a laugh from Vlad.

“Of course my friend. But I do seem to have a few doctors to track down and sue the pants off of.” He responded with an evil looking gleam in his eye. “I’ll keep in touch big man!” Vlad called as he headed up the stairs, leaving a grinning Jack and a stunned Maddie behind.

“He called you big man…” Maddie said flabbergasted.

“Yep!” Jack chirped happily.

“I feel as though I’m missing something…” Maddie shook her head to clear the confusion.

“Ah yea a bit! Vlad said next time he comes by we’ll all sit down and have a talk. I promised he can tell you.” Jack nodded firmly. “But trust me I think he’s gunna be a lot better now.”

“It certainty seems it…. I haven’t seen him that relaxed for a long time…”

“Ya don’t know just how true that is baby!” Jack laughed earning another sigh from his wife. “Come here I wanna show you what we were working on all day!”

Maddie chuckled as her husband swept her over to the table before rattling off about all the new things he and Vlad had done together, as old friends should.

 

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**˜Complete˜**


End file.
